Golden Stonefly

[Misha Gill]

For all you entomologists (Gene *ahem*) out there, I thought you might like to see a couple snaps I've taken lately. The first two are of a Golden Stonefly I observed up at Big Hunting Creek in mid-July. Looked like a small hummingbird flying down the stream. The third pic is of a crawdad that tried to eat (a version of) my crawdizzle  last week on the Monocacy. It catches fish too. 

Wish it wasn't raining on my day off...

[TurbineBlade]

Oh, I'd love to be an entomologist...but I'm not.  I just enjoy "amateur" entomology.  

Those are great pics!  

Gene

[Andy Thomas]

Wow.  Never seen any golden stones around here.  They do produce some outrageous hatches and fishing out west though.  We need to clone that sucker and introduce them on the trout rivers around here!

On Tuesday, August 12, 2014 2:11:16 PM UTC-4, Misha Gill wrote:

[TurbineBlade]

Misha - these are honestly even cooler than anyone has given credit.  Earlier this spring I found some large stonefly nymphs (similar in size to what you have there) but I never took it further than "wow, that's a huge stonefly".  

Have you stumbled upon a 'white miller' hatch?  I'd really like to see (and fish) one of those in my lifetime.  I guess I just need to camp on the Shenandoah sometime and hope for the best ;)

Gene

[Misha Gill]

Thanks man! I was amped to see a golden stonefly adult, I'd never seen one before.

Yes, I have seen a white miller, aka white fly, hatch one time on the Susquehanna. Unfortunately, I was watching a minor league baseball game on Harrisburg's City Island, and not fishing, but still pretty cool. The hatch hadn't even ramped up entirely and yet there were millions of flies around. All the kids were like eww bugs. Meanwhile, I'm trying to contain my urge to geek out about it. 

There is a strong white fly hatch on the Potomac main stem, you just gotta get outside the beltway to see it. We are actually in prime time right now for the white fly hatch. They should be popping off about now up on the susquehanna, and if you want to fish them for trout, on the Yellow Breeches. The only difficulty with this hatch is they really start to emerge mostly around 8 pm. Then they get so numerous, and it's so dark, that it is hard to figure out if you've had a strike during your drift!

I'm going to Harper's Ferry tomorrow, so maybe if we stick around long enough I'll have a report and a few snaps on them. 

[Misha Gill]

As promised, a picture of a White Fly aka White Miller (IMAG1295 is the best shot Dan). Kinda tricky getting a photo of these suckers... I was lucky to find one in a spiderweb, so he was a little more cooperative than the flying flies. I did save him from his doom and he eventually flew away fine. The emergence wasn't super strong last night, although I did muse to Helen that might have been because our location was not ideal habitat. We fished the Needles for about an hour beforehand (caught a few of the predominant year class of smallmouth bass - all on my Crawdizzle!) and then moved up to the slow water above the rapids around 7:45 pm. We fished white boogle bugs with modest success, landing a few sunnies. I did have a big fish on briefly though. It was cool, she sipped my boogle bug like a trout. Had no idea of her size until I came tight. Helen and I had been trout fishing all afternoon and so I came tight to the fish like I was fishing a flying ant pattern. That wasn't a proper bass hookset and she twisted off after a few brief moments. I felt enough of her weight to guess her size at an easy 16"+.

Theory time! I wonder if the White Millers are white because of the lack of light in the sky when they emerge, and the occasional cloud backdrop. There was a cloud overcast during the entirety of my epidemiological study so evidence suggests. Additionally, They of the Conventional Wisdom do suggest that one use black surface flies at night.

[Misha Gill]

Found a golden stonefly nymph casing up on the Savage this weekend. I am definitely going to tie up an imitation now. They are huge! Probably an excellent fly to fish in the winter up there. 

Also, I found a hitch hiker... This caterpillar had some crazy legs on it. In case anyone was wondering why fish eat big foam up there with crazy rubber leg adornments.